Armageddon

Bonus points to the publicists for uncommon candor: press materials for Armageddon proudly trumpeted the fact that "a cadre of talented writers" polished up Jonathan Hensleigh's script, publicly embracing the pot-luck screenwriting philosophy whereby a dozen different guys contribute something to a full cinematic meal. Or in this case, one massive snack. Armageddon certainly improves on its celestial catastrophe cousin Deep Impact, because at least it gets its priorities straight. Rather than aiming for sweeping epic emotion, this one goes right for the action, with Bruce Willis and his rag-tag drilling team headed into space to blow up the deadly asteroid. For its final 75 minutes, Armageddon is virtually nothing but explosions, crashes and narrow escapes...and that's a good thing. It's the first 75 minutes which truly test your gag reflex, as the aforementioned cadre of writers tries vainly to create the illusion of character development. Stock interpersonal conflicts share time with tender moments (like Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler sharing some Animal Cracker foreplay--don't ask) before the crew heads off to save humanity. Sure, it'll appeal to it's target audience, and it's a cheap enough buy. It's just an assembly line product where the film-makers are more concerned with one more Godzilla gag than letting a single writer create a solid narrative. Optional. (S. Renshaw)[Blu-ray Review— May 11, 2010—Touchstone, 151 min., PG-13, $29.99—Making its first appearance on Blu-ray, 1998's Armageddon sports a nice transfer with DTS-HD 5.1 sound. Blu-ray extras include a music video for “I Don't Want to Miss a Thing” by Aerosmith, and trailers. Bottom line: the extras package is practically non-existent but this is still an often fun semi-cheeseball disaster thriller.]